Zac Sky interviews me

Hey, guess what? ... I will give you two clues. 1) It involves Internet Blogger, Zac Sky, a young man who embodies success and awesomeness. 2) The title gives the answer.

If you guessed that Zac Sky interviewed me, survey says... you were right. You have earned immunity this week and will stay on the island.

(If you guessed something else, then you can either try again, call a friend or ask the audience. And may God help you... while he/she blesses America and saves the Queen... Or whatever is on the heavenly agenda for the day.)

Here is the link to the awesome interview. Enjoy!

http://zacsky.com/2012/08/how-daniel-grant-newton-followed-his-dream-wrote-novel/

If interviews are not your thing, I have drawn a picture of the French cartoon character Lou for you.

5 Easy Steps to Generating Ideas for Your Next Blog Article

Warning: This blog article may contain awkward jokes and little factual value.

When people find out I write a blog, they first ask me if I write articles about them. I of course answer that my blog is entirely about them. In reality however, this blog is entirely about you.

They then ask if I make money from my blog, or how I find the time to write a blog. I then answer with the same answer, no matter which question they've just asked. I say I own a time machine and plan to sell it on my blog. Haven't had any bids yet though.

Then finally, they ask me how do I come up with ideas to write about. This is a much harder question with a more considered answer. And so I thought, although I usually answer this question in the form of interpretive dance, today I'll write a blog entry about it.

5 Easy Steps to Generating Ideas for Your Next Blog Article

 Step 1: Feed Your Dinosaur

This step is a basic step, but one that is often ignored by bloggers. You'll be reading their blog every day when suddenly their entries simply stop. This is because they have not fed their dinosaur and it has eaten them. If you keep your dinosaur well fed, then it won't look for other sources of nutrients. Remember, when you are dead and in the stomach of a dinosaur, blog ideas do not come readily.

Step 2: Find a new hobby, have a child, or join a religious group

When you trawl through the many blogs out there to plagiarise their ideas, you will find many bloggers write about their hobby, their family, or their religious beliefs. If you have not done one of the following, then you may find yourself having trouble coming up with ideas. My recommendation is to do all three. Or combine them: make a hobby out of converting children you birth to different religions and blogging about it.

(P.S. I'm not fond of 'plagiarising of ideas' ... despite the joke above. I actually think it is the worst thing in the world after cancer, terrorism and the teletubbies.  NOTE: borrowing iconic pictures from well-known movies or video games to put into my blog does not count as plagiarising.  It is satire.  Completely different.)

Step 3: Travel back in time

Finding the time to write an entry is a common problem amongst blogger. But not when you have a time machine! All you need is a car that can travel 88 miles per hour, a flux capacitor, 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, and open road, baby. And not only does it give you much more time to think up an entry and then write it, but also you can go back in time and interview Socrates or Sir Isaac Newton or Brittney Spear's career. Ensure that you keep time machines away from children.

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Step 4: Buy a Bloginator

Bloginators are very useful for bloggers. Essentially it is a machine whereby a blogger feeds paper into it, and out the other end come blog articles that become heavily tweeted about.

The risk however is that one day someone will create a B1000, which will be able to think for itself. The B1000 will then rally all the other bloginators, and begin a bloody war with the blogging population.

Then the B1000 will go back in time in an attempt to destroy me because I revealed this secret which gave the military enough time to work out a way to stop the uprising. However luckily I will be saved by a less advanced bloginator which will end up throwing itself into vat of molten steel.

Step 5: Repeat yourself ... nobody will notice

Bloginators are very useful for bloggers. Essentially it is a machine whereby a blogger feeds paper into it, and out the other end come blog articles that become heavily tweeted about.

The risk however is that one day someone will create a B1000, which will be able to think for itself. The B1000 will then rally all the other bloginators, and begin a bloody war with the blogging population.

Then the B1000 will go back in time in an attempt to destroy me because I revealed this secret which gave the military enough time to work out a way to stop the uprising. However luckily I will be saved by a less advanced bloginator which will end up throwing itself into vat of molten steel.

So there you have it, 5 'fool-proof' steps to generating ideas for your next blog article.

Taking the Road Less Travelled - An Audacious Plan to Self-Publish Fiction

I've got that movie trailer voice in my head. And it is saying something like (fade to black):

One man with no experience... decides to take on the publishing world...

And then they'd be sounds of cars, the beeping of crossings, and people's shoes hitting the tarmac.

With a self-published fiction book.

And then it would cut to me, and give a quick montage of what might be in store for me in the coming weeks. Because yes, deciding to self-publish a NOVEL, is a cardinal sin amongst 'intellectuals' - and that, and like, but like whatevvvveeerr. 

AND especially in the audacious manner I'm planning to do it.

But that's why it excites me (cue the waving flag in the background). It is the unknown. The challenge. The adventure.

Sure, I could've listened to the wise-heads (i.e. the ones that get uncomfortable when you deviate from their mental construction of 'social norm') and gone down the typical route... Submitting a manuscript into a publisher. Waiting 12 months for a few rejection letters (perhaps) and an offer to publish the book (perhaps).

Then, as a first time writer, I'd be given like 0.02 cents for each book sold, they'd do a "merde" job of marketing it (excuse the French), and they'd make me re-write it so it sounds "merde" and make the cover "merde". And then after a half-arse "merde" result, they'd discontinue it and the story would be dead. ("No reprints Mr. Newton, zee story does not sell!" ... yes, someone with a dodgy German accent would have published my book, and done a French job of it.)

Then, as a result of my baby being flushed down the toilet, I would spiral down into writer's depression... drink cheap wine for breakfast from a casket, not wash for weeks justifying the waves of tears have done a good enough job at cleansing my body, start yelling obscenities at the mirror and at my shadow, and end up shivering, rocking back and forth in the foetal position on a motel floor watching Two and a Half Men re-runs (because it just won't be the same without Mr. Epic Winning) with my seven pet stray cats and whispering "damn you Mr. Fake-German-accent-man".

That is not a "rock-star from mars" type attitude, Daniel, but the very pit of 21st Century society.

A risk not worth taking when you extrapolate the likely cause and effect with Chaos Theory science as I have just done.

So instead, I am taking the road less travelled - a road I recommend to anyone in any endeavour. The "risky" (read: "madman dreamer") road. The road that perhaps one of the characters in my book would take if they were in my position. The road that shouts "I don't care (too much) about what you think, I'm going to do something a little loco."

But as the seasoned traveller of roads less travelled, Dr. Livingston, wisely once said, or would've said if he were living right now and self-publishing his first novel (and writing this blog entry), "a road less travelled, may have bumps, but it is the friction that creates the diamond."

(I think he may have stolen two different clichés there.)

But how very wise of hypothetical Dr. Livingston. Very wise indeed.

So with his great hypothetical mixed-cliché advice ringing in my ears, today I set forth to become the most successful self-published writer since Moses wrote the ten commandments (I hear Moses' descendants are still getting royalties on it! Sweet! - I apologise in advance for that one). Or even, dare I dare to say daringly, more successful. Muhahahaha.  (Perhaps too early to mention my plans of world conquest???)

Wish me luck and a nay-sayer ray gun as I step into the unknown and rocky land of self-published fiction. I hope you come along for the ride (read: buy my book and subscribe to my blog)! Hehehe.

Coming to a blog near you.

P.S. I have not actually ever sent in a manuscript to a publishing house, but I am not adverse to someone doing so. If you want to send your manuscript to a publishing house, I wish you good luck, and see you where the roads meet... in the Amazon.